Smoke & Mirrors
by raspberry-rave
Summary: The warmth of the cigarette settled like an oppressive weight on his lungs, but did nothing to lessen the chill he felt seeping through his bones.


**Smoke (& Mirrors)**

*****

An overhead light flickered into being, swinging in the darkness and illuminating the lone figure tied to a chair. Draco Malfoy sat slumped forward with his arms bound behind his back, sculpted features hanging inches above the cold, steel surface of a table. A rough hand grabbed him by the hair and yanked his head back forcefully; his eyes narrowed to slits as he glared at the offender. Harry Potter grunted, green eyes glinting maliciously at Draco from behind framed spectacles as he took a seat opposite.

Draco tipped his chair back insolently, superior attitude firmly in place as he regarded his captor. "You know, Potter," he said through a mouth that felt stuffed full of cotton wool, "the whole point of this little charade is that I don't see your face."

Potter lifted an indolent shoulder and let it drop, fixing Malfoy with a cold stare. Draco forced as sigh from battered lungs and assumed an air of resignation. "Fuck, Potter, you could at least get me a fag before you start this routine."

In five minutes, Draco's hands were released from the back of the chair and bound in front of him. He held a cigarette between slender fingers, the butt just touching the pristine table as ashes threatened to fall. He took a slow drag. Savoured it, and shook overgrown hair out of his eyes. He didn't look at Potter.

"Excuses? Alibis?" the other man inquired politely.

Draco shrugged casually, with the attitude of a man not imprisoned. "I don't know what you're accusing me of." This time, he added silently, and knew Potter thought the same thing.

His captor looked smug as he pushed an envelope across the table at Draco.

"My people can put you in the vicinity of Wiltshire on the night of the incident --"

"Yeah," Draco drawled, raising an eyebrow. He didn't glance at the envelope. "I live in Wiltshire, you fucking prick. Got a whole team of weasels working on that one?"

Potter flushed slightly and Draco had the satisfaction of knowing that the barb had hit its mark. But he wasn't finished, and he nodded at the envelope resting millimetres from Draco's fingers. It was cold in the room and his fingertips were beginning to turn blue from their contact with the steel table. The warmth of the cigarette settled like an oppressive weight on his lungs but did nothing to lessen the chill he felt seeping through his bones. I'm growing old, Draco thought with grim resignation.

Potter continued smiling like the cat who caught the fucking canary and nodded at the envelope.

Draco slid the photos out with one hand. They scattered across the table where he surveyed them expressionlessly. He took another long drag and Potter started to get impatient. Good.

"Look familiar?" Potter sneered, the uncharacteristic expression standing out on his features like a grotesque mask.

Draco touched a moving picture that showed him hugging Ginny Weasley from behind, his arms wrapped securely around her waist. They were laughing as snow settled in their hair, faces turned towards each other, unaware of the photographer.

In another, she had just thrown a snowball at him and he'd taken his wand out to retaliate. They looked so happy that Draco almost didn't recognize himself, didn't recognize the feeling.

The corners of his mouth twitched, and he drew on the cigarette. Grey eyes flickered over the photos until the images blurred and all he was left with were splotches of colour: crimson red on burnished gold on powdery white.

"What are you trying to prove, Potter?" Draco asked, levelling a stony gaze at his jailer.

"You've got motive --" Draco barely suppressed a snarl. "--and opportunity, Malfoy." Potter dropped the niceties and his tone became ugly. "And according to these pictures, you're also the last person to have seen Ginny Weasley alive."

Something unidentifiable flickered in the back of Draco's eyes and memories rose unbidden to his mind. He remembered the feel of her hair when it slid across his skin every time she moved her head as they lay entwined; the taste of her lips, always warm until they became so chillingly cold; the sound of her breathing, steady then laboured and finally, slowly, ebbing away. But mostly he remembered the smell of her fear and his own, mingling together and breaching tangibility to clog his ears and eyes and throat. And what were a few cigarettes compared to that, really?

When he lifted his eyes to meet Potter's again, the grey orbs were suddeningly, frighteningly impenetrable. Because the only things keeping him from crumbling in the face of his enemy like a broken man were his pride, the slow burn of the cigarette like a suicidal fuse between his fingers, and his memories of _her_.


End file.
